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NintendoPie on 11 July 2023
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EpicRandy said:
NintendoPie said:

before I comment on anything else, do you also support Disney and NBC's acquisitions or do you see these as a different case? or, in addition, any other oligopoly. 

I have no information on the Disney acquisition and did not make any research so hard to say if I'm against it or for it. Every acquisition must be looked at through the lens of their impact in the markets they evolve in. Nothing more nothing less. Disney already boasts a dominant position in its market way more so than MS has with Xbox so it's likely to be a substantially different case. Also, I don't know enough about NBC to see what they actually bring to Disney so hard to say which markets are actually impacted. But in creative sectors, it will always be harder to demonstrate anti-competitive behavior because every product is unique and does not really impact one another directly.

Also, there's nothing in the ABK merger that reinforces a supposed oligopoly status of the video game market quite the opposite in fact by stimulating competition it actually provides a harder path for such to exist.

It is also worth noting that the ABK transaction is viewed as a vertical merger, not a horizontal one which means the number of actors in the industry doesn't decrease.

when you mean vertical merger as opposed to a horizontal one, are you saying this because ABK are a developer/publisher and not a console manufacturer? or some other reason?

i also would like to refer you to what i edited the OP with:

"i view this as a bad thing because of what it poses for things to come. the entertainment industry wasn't always ruled by the few, nor the beauty industry, nor the food and beverage industry. all of this happens due to a slippery slope."

markets don't have to start out as an oligopoly in order to become one, but i'm sure you know that. i also would like to call into question your stimulating competition point. if by stimulating competition, you mean stimulating the competition to acquire more companies and slide closer to oligopolies, i would agree. though, i think you mean it another way. 

also, i think your comment regarding anti-competitive behavior in an IP world is definitely interesting. JWeinCom brought this up as well. do you not think our anti-trust laws are just outdated so that they don't properly serve IP, or do you not think it's possible to ever directly impact other actors in an IP-related market due to the matter of what it is? because i think we already see a case of this in other industries, such as the ones i've already brought up.

in the end, i'll use an example to try to relay my point. let's say a market has four large players that own 81% of the entire market share due to acquisition. decades before the present day, these four actors only made up 51% of the market. i don't want to spell out what that would do to a market because i believe you already know but, do you not have a problem with that?